Elon Musk: Tesla Stock Price 'Kind Of High Right Now'

On the day Tesla’s CEO announced that his car company’s $5 billion next generation battery “gigafactory” would be built in Nevada, Musk quipped, ”I think our stock price is kind of high right now to be totally honest.” Musk continued: ”If you care about the long term, Tesla, I think the stock is a good price. If you look at the short term, it is less clear.”

That total honesty is going to cost Musk–and the rest of Tesla’s investors–some money. Tesla stock is down about 4.5% in Friday morning trading, and Musk’s net worth has fallen by more than $350 million as a result. The poor guy only has a cool $10 billion to play with now.

This isn’t the first time Musk has said publicly that Tesla stock is too high. In August 2013, he said, “I actually think the value of Tesla right now is, the market is being very generous. And they’re obviously giving us a lot of credit for future execution. So we’ll do our best to honor the faith the market has placed in us.” In November of last year he reiterated: “I believe I said several times that the valuation was more than we had any right to deserve… I was not the one who thought the valuation should go up to such levels.”

Tesla shares were up over 400% in 2013 when Musk began speaking out against his own stock. The share price fell about 20% in the final quarter, but have rebounded to be up over 80% in 2014.

Tesla is currently trading at a market capitalization over $34 billion, more than half that of General Motors, Ford, and Honda. Each of those heavyweights has more than 50 times the annual revenues as Musk’s start up.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.